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Queensland tiger
Other names: Marsupial cat, marsupial lion, punchum, Tumbulgum lion, yarri : Country reported: The Queensland tiger is a cryptid feline marsupial reported from Eastern , usually identified with the marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex), or more rarely with the thylacine or an entirely different form of marsupial or felid. Although not as well-known as some other cryptids, it is one of the best documented, and in the middle of the twentieth century, when Bernard Heuvelmans wrote that it was the unknown animal closest to official recognition,Bernard, Heuvelmans (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals it was regularly being described in natural history books on Australia. Description Physical appearance The Queensland tiger is usually described as a powerful, stockily built animal with a short, lion-like head. Its body is short and it has long legs, creating a disproportional effect. The tail is like that of a thylacine, but thicker and a little shorter. The tail also has a small white, forward-facing tuft on its tip. Many various colours and patterns are reported, ranging from patternless tan, brown and black, with some sightings reporting stripes or spots, sometimes darker, sometimes lighter. Other sightings describe the animal as having brindle fur with yellow spots. This suggests a wide range of colours from individual to individual. The head is round and somewhat oversized, with eyes of varying size (usually large) and rounded or triangular ears. It is supported by a thick and powerful neck. It appears to attack the head or neck of a prey item, and then tear open the stomach and eat the viscera, occasionally dragging prey into the branches of a tree. Kills ascribed to the Queensland tiger are usually animals such as wallabies and kangaroos, but several sightings describe them killing livestock. The Queensland tiger is capable of a number of vocalisations, a grunting noise, and a whirring or whining noise. It seems to mainly keep to thick woodland and forest, rarely venturing out into the open. It is during these rare trips through open land when most sightings occur. They will venture into farm paddocks to take livestock. They are reported to be extremely stealthy and effective predators. They seem to be mainly nocturnal - most livestock kills occur by night and they are mainly sighted in the early morning. Predation Habitat Physical evidence Photographs Ozenkadnook tiger.jpg|(1) Rilla Martin photograph of the 'Ozenkadnook tiger'. Ozenkadnook tiger inverted.png|(2) Colour-inverted version of the Rilla Martin photograph, showing the animal's outline more clearly. Ozenkadnook tiger, possible appearance in life.jpg|(3) Possible appearance of the Ozenkadnook tiger unobstructed by shrubbery. Tracks Sightings Overview It is unknown how many sightings of Australian alien big cats, phantom cats, and panthers are actually Queensland tiger sightings, so listed here are only the sightings claimed specifically to be of tigers. 1705 A "tiger" was seen in 1705.Paranormal.com.au circa 1800's Far over two hundred accounts of yarri sightings have allegedly been recorded since 1800, but farmers found them pests and killed many of them. From 1850 to the late 1990s, for 150 years, European explorers, settlers, farmers, bush walkers and scientists observed, shot, skinned, examined and described the animal in detail in scientific publications, magazines and newspapers.Gary Opit.comUnexplained Mysteries The significance of most of the animals that were shot was never realised - as such, carcasses were discarded, and in one case a body was left ouside and devoured by wild pigs.ShukerNature: FROM BLACK LIONS TO LIVING SABRE-TOOTHS - MY TOP TEN MYSTERY CATS 1864 A bullock-driver near Cardwell claimed to have seen a tiger in 1864, but as he was a notorious liar, he was not believed.Walter J. Scott, "Letter from W. J. Scott, Addressed to the Secretary, Respecting the Supposed ‘Native Tiger’ of Queensland", Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1872 1871 The thirteen year old son of Cardwell police magistrate Brinsley G. Sheridan chased a striped 'cat' up a tree in or shortly before 1871. It became aggressive when the boys dog growled, and it chased them home. Zoologist Philip Sclater passed on Sheridan's account of his sons encounter to the Zoological Society of London, of which he was Secretary, in 1871:"Notice of the Existence in Queensland of an Undescribed Species of Mammal", Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1871 :"One evening strolling along a path close to the shore of Rockingham Bay, a small terrier, my son's companion, took a scent up from a piece of scrub near the beach, and followed, barking furiously, towards the coast-range westwards. My boy (thirteen years of age, but an old bushman, who would put half those described in novels to the blush) followed and found in the long grass, about half a mile from the spot the scent was first taken up, an animal described by himself as follows : — ' It was lying camped in the long grass and was as big as a native Dog ; its face was round like that of a Cat, it had a long tail, and its body was striped from the ribs under the belly with yellow and black. My Dog flew at it, but it could throw him. When they were together I fired my pistol at its head; the blood came. The animal then ran up a leaning tree, and the Dog barked at it. It then got savage and rushed down the tree at the Dog and then at me. I got frightened and came home.' :"It was just dark when the boy came home in a high state of excitement and told me the story. From inquiry I find that this is not the first time a similar animal has been seen in this neighbourhood. Tracks of a sort of Tiger have been seen in Dalrymple's Gap by people camping there, and Mr. Reginald Uhr, now Police Ma- gistrate at St. George, whilst one of the native mounted police officers in this district, saw the same animal my son describes. The country is so sparsely populated, and the jungles (or, as we call them here, 'scrubs') so dense and so little known, that I have no doubt that animals of this kind exist in considerable numbers, the abun- dance of food and their timidity preventing our more intimate know- ledge of their habits. I shall be most happy to send you, should it be my good fortune to drop across one of them, its skin and skeleton. I only regretted, as my poor boy did, that he had not my revolver, as he says he stood, when it was fighting with the Dog, at less than a yard from the animal." Later in the year, in early December, a surveyor named Hull was working with a party of five men near the Murray and Mackay Rivers, north of Cardwell. Between 8 and 9 o'clock one night, all the men were startled by a loud roar close to the tents. They armed themselves and searched the area, but the animal had already departed; in the morning, however, they found and sketched its tracks. The men with Hull told the same story when interviewed, and additionally claimed to have heard the roars for three nights in a row. Zoologist Gerard Krefft believed the track was that of an ordinary dog. 1889 In Carl Lumholtz's 1889 book Among Cannibals, he writes: :"During my association with these savages I learned that on the summit of the Coast Mountains, before mentioned, there lived two varieties of mammals which seemed to me to be unknown to science; but I had much difficulty in acquiring this knowledge. One of the animals they called yarri. From their description I conceived it to be a marsupial tiger. It was said to be about the size of a dingo, though its legs were shorter and its tail long, and it was described by the blacks as being very savage. If pursued it climbed up the trees, where the natives did not dare follow it, and by gestures they explained to me how at such times it would growl and bite their hands. Rocky retreats were its most favourite habitat, and its principal food was said to be a little brown variety of wallaby common in Northern Queensland scrubs. Its flesh was not particularly appreciated by the blacks, and if they accidentally killed a yarri they gave it to their old women. In Western Queensland I heard much about an animal which seemed to me to be identical with the yarri here described, and a specimen was once nearly shot by an officer of the black police in the regions I was now visiting." 1900 J. McGeehan claimed to have come across a "striped marsupial cat" being attacked by dogs and "crying piteously" near Kairi in 1900. The cat was clearly striped in alternate dark brown and white rings about 7 centimetres wide, had a head like a Pomeranian dog, and was about 60 centimetres long in all. Bernard Heuvelmans believed this was a young individual. Naturalist George Sharp also claimed to have briefly spied a Queensland tiger in or around 1900, whilst hunting for eggs of the golden bower-bird (Ptilonorhynchus) near the source of the Tully River: :"He states that one evening, when about to retire (it was not dark), he heard a rustle in the scrub, and on looking round saw what he describes as a beast "larger and darker than the Tasmanian tiger, with the stripes showing very distinctly." It was gone before he could raise his gun." A little while after the Sharp sighting, a tiger was allegedly killed on the Atherton Tableland whilst attacking a farmer's goats. Sharp heard of the incident and was able to examine the skin, which he described as being about five feet long from the nose to the tip of the tail. However, Sharp had no means of preserving the skin, and it was allowed to decay; wild pigs had already eaten the head and body. 1920 In 1920, two men on horseback, G. de Tournoeur and P. B. Scougall, claimed to the Brisbane Courier that they had encountered a Queensland tiger at Munna Creek. They described:Souef, A. S (1926) The Wild Animals Of Australasia :"We dismounted and were startled to find the cause to be a large animal of the cat tribe, standing about twenty yards away, astride of a very dead calf, glaring defiance at us, and emitting what I can ony describe as a growling whine. As far as the gathering darkness and torrential rain allowed us to judge he was nearly the size of a mastiff, of a dirty fawn colour, with a whitish belly, and broad blackish tiger stripes. The head was round, with rather prominent lynx-like ears, but unlike that feline there were a tail reaching to the ground and large pads. We threw a couple of stones at him, which only made him crouch low, with ears laid flat, and emit a raspy snarl, vividly reminiscent of the African leopard’s nocturnal 'wood-sawing' cry. Beating an angry tattoo on the grass with his tail, he looked so ugly and ready for a spring that we felt a bit 'windy '; but on our making a rush and cracking our stockwhips he bounded away to the bend of the creek, where he turned back and growled at us." 1926 Another tiger was killed by dogs 1926. A 'cat' the size of a sheepdog was also killed in 1926. 1932 A tiger was shot in 1932. 1940 In May or June 1940, Nigel and Charlie Tutt were hiking on Mount Stanley when they rounded a bend and saw a large cat sunning itself on a pine stump. They stopped about 20 feet away from it and noted that it was reddish, with dark-brown stripes all over its body and legs. It looked at them coolly for about twenty seconds and then bounded away. 1954 A man named Gamer was riding through the brush near Bidwell, Queensland, in 1954 when he surprised a large, gray cat with dark-orange stripes. He was struck by its savage nature and large fangs. 1967 In late 1967, an aggressive animal the size of a dog was shot by Carl Lentz. He intended to keep the carcass, but heavy flooding in the night caused him to skin it and leave the body.Centre for Fortean Zoology Australia: NSW 'Thylacine' sightings update 1968 A Queensland Tiger spotted on Mount Bartle Frere in 1968 was described as having a round, broad head, a nose shorter and broader than a dog's and some of its teeth appeared to protrude out and upwards like tusks. 1969 Scientist Gary Opit allegedly saw a giant quoll-like animal along Brisbane's Gold Coast Highway in 1969. He was alone, and got a clear view of the animal, which walked like a marsupial. He has seen the animal on multiple occasions since, and his encounters with the beast have stretched as far north as Mt Tamborine.Thylacoleo Alive and Well up North? His brother John Opit has also seen the Queensland tiger. Opit described his encounter: :"At about 11 pm, as I travelled south through long stretches of darkened forest with very little other traffic, I observed a large carnivorous mammal suddenly cross the road directly in front of my vehicle. :"It emerged about 30 metres in front of the car on my side of the road (the left hand or eastern side) and I saw its head, shaped something like a mastiff dog, protrude from the vegetation and watched it walk across the grassy road verge and onto the bitumen. I applied the brake not wanting to hit what at first I thought must be a dog. Then I accelerated up to it when I realised that it was not a dog. It stood approximately 60 cm at the shoulders, had a body length of about 75-cm and a tail of the same length. The snout protruded from a round head with small pricked ears. It had a powerfully built body covered in brindled somewhat thick fur with indistinct stripes appearing beneath the thinner black outer coat. :"The fore and hind legs were about the same size, the rump and hind legs appeared reasonably powerful and what was distinctly noticeable was a marsupial-like waddling gait that particularly caught my attention. It reminded me of the gait of a brush-tailed possum only this animal was very much larger. Its robust form, muscled legs and large feet indicated to me that it was adapted to terrestrial locomotion with a strong tree climbing ability. :"It had a long straight thickly furred tail with 6 bands or stripes across it and the tail did not wag from side to side as it walked across the road. When my car closely approached the strange animal it raised all the hairs on the tail, as a dog may raise its hackles when disturbed, as if it was attempting to make itself look larger. This very distinctive banded tail was the last I saw of the animal as it disappeared into thick vegetation on the western side of the road. At no time did it look at my closely approaching vehicle or increase its speed as it crossed the road." At the time Opit considered the possibility that it was some species of escaped civet, but also connected it with the "marsupial cat" described by Ellis Troughton. circa 1970's From 1970 to 1973, naturalist Janeice Plunkett collected more than 100 reports of the tiger throughout Queensland.Eberhart, George (2002) Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology 1981 1982 In 1982 a leopard-sized creature with a cat-like gait and heavily striped tail was reported near Perth. 1983 Mike Jones ran across a black-striped, panther-sized animal feeding on a dead calf in the mountains near Mareeba, Queensland, in 1983. 1984 In 1984, a panther-sized striped cat-like animal was seen sitting in a tree devouring a sheep and also heard roaring near a creek at Daintree. circa 1985 Gary Opit collected an account of a marsupial lion encounter which supposedly occured in the Billinudgel Nature Reserve sometime around 1985. Opit's contact :"was driving along the coastal sandy 4 wheel drive track (now closed to all but walkers, cyclists & national park vehicles) that runs just behind the beach at 2 am returning home from a late night out when a black panther-like animal crossed the track right in front of his car. He described it as being very heavily built, like a bear crossed with a panther & was positive from its appearance that it could only be a marsupial lion which he had read about in a book on Aussie prehistoric fauna, but which he didn't have too much interest in. It scared him with its powerful unconcerned attitude. It had a thickly furred curved tail. He drove on and seconds later an emu, perhaps being hunted by the animal, run up from behind past the car, unusual for a diurnal bird, which further shocked him as he thought it was the big cat-like beast attacking his car." 1987 On May 30, 1987, Greg Calvert found tracks larger than a dingo’s near Hughenden, Queensland, and followed them for several hundred yards. They showed the grooming claws of a marsupial. Also in 1987, a hunter near Hughenden was pursuing a dingo he had wounded when a large hay-coloured animal with black body stripes suddenly appeared and attacked and ate the dingo. 1994 1995 In 1995, Goldsborough Valley resident "Wharfie" Mark Camplon was sitting on his verandah when his dog Rusty began to grow afraid of something unseen. He soon heard a deep growling. Camplon said people who thought he had been hitting the booze should go an spend some time in the valley:The Marsupial Lion :"once you are here, away from civilisation and all the noise and lights, it's easy to believe that a creature could live for years away from the eyes of man. You could lose an army up here, let alone a family of cats or something similar. Especially if they were well adapted to the area." In mid-September 1995, a dead female Queensland Tiger was allegedly found beside the Bruce Highway about 12.5 miles south of Cardwell. It was described it as the size of a small cattle dog, with a cat-like face, short pointed ears, large hindquarters and stripes near the chest from backbone down to belly. The distinctive stripes were regularly spaced on a dark tan background colour. The tail had a tiny white tip. Some of the dark brown hairs below the chest had black tips, formed four black stripes. The remains were too mangled and decomposed for conclusive identification, and no testing was ever done, apparently. circa 2000 Around 2000, a man was out shooting in Australia when he saw what appeared to be a big black cat. He looked at it through binoculars, and realised it had a wombat-like head. Opting not to shoot, he went over to it, but it was gone when he arrived at the tree it was standing under. Later, he realised that the animal had climbed the tree, and was there when he was searching below the tree, but refrained from attacking.Cryptozoology.com Animal X interviewed a man named Dennis Wright, who also claimed to have come close to shooting a Thylacoleo. He made no note of going to the tree, so it is unknown if this is the same person. 2002 On 21 June 2002, a wombat-like feline animal was reportedly seen near a disused logging coop in Gilderoy by a family driving past:Yowie Hunters :"Driving slowly with the Rangie's lights and spots on, one child commented that something was coming down the hill towards the road as he could see the undergrowth moving around. Thinking it might be a kangaroo or wombat I slowed down. The thing came off the hillside and got onto the road. My first thought was it looked like a quoll on steroids it was so big. It was uniformly dark in colour, about 80cms at the shoulder and about 1.5m from nose to tail. The head had the same sort of stub nose like a Tasmanian Devil (with the same sort of heavy jaws), and a long tail like a kangaroo which it seemed to use for balance or steering - (it didnt move about like a cats, it looked fairly rigid and slightly curved). The thing looked large and powerfully built, but it had a quite graceful (almost arrogant) stride to it. I stopped; it walked into the middle of the road (and our lights); turned and looked at us for perhaps 30 seconds and sauntered across to the other side where it went down into the gully. I drove to the spot, got out and took a mobile spot to the edge of the gully. The animal followed the creek for about 10-20m, crossed it and disappeared into the bush on the other side. My family and I looked for tracks but the road was pretty much covered with gravel and small rocks and so not much could be seen. However the smell in the air where the thing had been was pretty unspeakable - rotting flesh." 2005 A farmer, searching for a missing cow in 2005, found that it had been severely wounded by a broad-headed predator, present at the scene, that "seemed to have some marsupial-like attributes" being long-bodied, short-legged and long and thick in the tail. The creature had also killed the cow’s calf.The Cryptozoologist 2007 :Main article: Singleton giant quoll. The Singleton giant quoll is almost universally speculated to be a Thylacoleo. The ony difference between it and Thylacoleo ''is that the quoll had a longer muzzle. A $1000 reward has been offered by "Mike" for anyone who takes a photograph of the animal. 2008 In the December of 2008, a woman named Jennifer was driving through Castlereagh Hwy, near Pearson's Lookout between the towns of Capertee and Ilford, in a large truck. Whilst driving, she allegedly passed two dead animals together - a kangaroo, and another, unidentified animal akin to a lion cub. She described it as follows:Centre for Fortean Zoology - Thylacoleo Roadkill in NSW? :"''The markings on the torso of the other animal were dark brown / black and the main colour was tan. The markings made me look closer and the carcass was intact. The ears were rounded, the head was stout and like a lion cub and the front paws were huge in comparison to it's body size. The back paws and tail were obscured because of the position it landed in after being run over. (probably feeding on the small roo). My first thoughts were of a small lion, but the dark marking's threw me. It was a thick set animal about 500 - 600mm long. For the rest of the trip to Sydney (2.75 hrs) I couldn't stop wondering what this thing was, and having told the story to several people, I still couldn't come up with a logical explanation." 2009 An eyewitness from Warburton, Victoria reported that on 28 August 2009, theyBig Cat Witnesses :"went for a walk up the tip road which runs straight up the hill and then winds it's way around to Warburton, I left the road at the end of the straight and headed up a track that used to be used by dirt bikes, the track had been dig up by an excavator to prevent them from using it. The hill is very steep so I was watching my footing (and for snakes) and in my own little world when I heard what I can only explain as a gasping hiss. adrenalin shot down my spine as my head shot up with enough time to see a rather large hind quarters of a cat like animal shoot into dense brush about 10-15 metres away. It took me a moment to registers what I saw. All sightings I had heard over the years had been of a puma type cat with a slender tail, this was smaller, about kelpie ''breed of Australian sheepdog size but very powerful hind quarters, very muscly, not a nice rounded rump like a Wallaby.'' :"It's tail was about a mans arms length long and thick and sort of bristly, unfortunately I didn't see it's head. I was waiting to hear the sound of it bounding through the scrub but there was no bounding, just the sound of it crashing through the brush. I think we startled each other. I stayed up there for about an hour but saw no heard anything else until on my way I found prints in the upturned excavation work, they were very clear to the eye but the camera did a shit-house job of bringing up the definition." 2010 In 2010, a Thylacoleo ''allegedly ran across the road in front of a car, at extreme speed.Mystery Beast Sighted in Hunter Valley, NSW 2012 In February of 2012, a woman was driving down a road in Nimbin at night when a large animal walked out in front of the car. It look like a lion, but had a striped flank.Nimbin sighting of possible thylacine or marsupial lion Theories Mistaken identity Alien big cat Marsupial lion Notably, some eyewitnesses have noted a forward-facing tuft on the animals tail.The Quest for Thylacoleo In 2008, an Aboriginal cave painting was found depicting ''Thylacoleo with a tufted tail.Antiquity Journal Thylacine Unknown giant quoll Similar cryptids *Alien big cats in Australia. *The Singleton giant quoll. *The warrigal, a large maned cat with protruding teeth, reported from Australia's Blue Mountains. Further cryptozoological reading *Bernard, Heuvelmans (1955) On the Track of Unknown Animals *Healy, Tony (1994) Out of the Shadows: Mystery Animals of Australia *Opit, Gary (2009) Australian Cryptozoology *Williams, Mike and Lang, Rebecca (2010) Australian Big Cats: An Unnatural History of Panthers *O'Reilly, David (2011) Savage Shadow: The Search for the Australian Cougar *Wright, Dennis (2017) Thylacoleo Lives Notes and references Do you think the exists? If so, what do you think the is? Myth, folklore, hoax, or otherwise made-up Mistaken identity Marsupial lion (Thylacoleo) Thylacine Alien big cat Undiscovered giant quoll Category:Workshop